I don’t always drink $7,000 whiskey.
But when I do…
It’s a toast to a job well done.

by Brian Pillmore | Mar 13, 2023 | Brian's Blog

This picture was taken right after I became a partner in a whiskey and cigar business with these 2 great partners. One of them walks up to me and hands me a Glencairn glass of whiskey. “What’s this??” “THIS is a 1978 Glenmorangie Pride finished in a Bordeaux cask...

Spent the day discussing Silicon Valley Bank, Silvergate Bank, Signature Bank, among others with our customers, partners and friends.

by Brian Pillmore | Mar 13, 2023 | Brian's Blog

I don’t see the shutdown of SVB by regulators or the self-liquidation of Silvergate as indicators of widespread contagion but there are some characteristics of troubled banks that we ought to be aware of: (1) Low loan-to-deposits (inefficient balance sheet...

Why do big businesses seem to waste so much money?

by Brian Pillmore | Mar 10, 2023 | Brian's Blog

How can a BANK have a $14B tech budget?? (cough, cough, JP Morgan) The answer isn’t SIZE – It’s AGE. Most businesses get big because they’ve been around for a long time.(Except now, tech companies can get really big, really fast)But for our purposes, Big...

I recently had a customer ask if they could have a copy of all our underlying data.
I didn’t even hesitate to say yes.

by Brian Pillmore | Mar 10, 2023 | Brian's Blog

Obviously they had to pay something for it,But in my mind, a billion raw data points isn’t all that valuable. In fact, you could find it all yourself – For FREE. What makes our data valuable is 2-fold: 1️⃣ We have a program to gather and sort it perpetually2️⃣...

Hearing business leaders complain about their talent pool drives me INSANE!

by Brian Pillmore | Mar 7, 2023 | Brian's Blog

Sure it would be nice to have all A+ talent,But what these complainers don’t realize is that nobody is measuring them based on their accomplishments…. They are measured on what they can ACCOMPLISH with what they’ve been GIVEN. Take John Wooden as an example. He was...